Assassin's Creed 3, Far Cry 3 see incredible success in Q3

Ubisoft today gave us a general insight on its performance for the fiscal quarter ending December 31, 2012, and although we don't have specific figures or sales numbers, we do have a overall indication as to its performance in the three month Q3 period.

As expected, both Assassin's Creed 3 and Far Cry 3 achieved incredible success in the quarter. Fan and critic reception towards these titles have provided plenty of hints at this, but Ubisoft confirmed what we already knew. Assassin's Creed 3 saw "record-breaking success", with the game having now passed the 12 million sales mark. It represents an almost 70% increase over its predecessor, Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Likewise, the company's sandbox psychedelic shooter Far Cry 3 also delivered a "higher-than-expected" performance, with over 4.5 million units sold.

"Our performance fully validates our long-term choices and the large-scale investments we have been undertaking for several years now, with a sharp ramp-up in games for core gamers and notably our strong comeback into the major segment of shooter games. Assassin's Creed 3 has reported record-breaking sales of over 12 million units and year after year is marking its position as one of the industry’s major franchises," Chief Executive Officer, Yves Guillemot said.

He added: "We have also reestablished Far Cry as one of the major pillars of our offering for core gamers, with Far Cry 3 the highest rated shooter of 2012 for Xbox 360 and winning the Gamespot People's Choice Game of the Year award. We now have greater visibility in terms of future revenue and profitability for this franchise."

For the online digital side of things, Ubisoft saw an increase of 143% to €55.2 million ($74 million). Critically acclaimed titles like Trials Evolution on XBLA and Rayman Jungle Run on iOS helped achieve this success.

Overall sales for the third quarter of 2012-2013 came to €802 million ($1.09 billion), up 23.0% (or 19.2% at constant exchange rates) compared with the €652 million ($872 million) recorded for the same period of 2011-12. For the current nine month period of fiscal 2012-13, Ubisoft's sales have totaled €1,081 million ($1.4 billion) versus €900 million ($1.2 billion) during the same time in the previous year.